Greg Walden Gives Advice on How To Win Broadband Funding

Former House Commerce Committee Chairman Freg Walden (R-OR) has a simple answer for small cable operators that are hard pressed to know how to navigate the bureaucratic quagmire to broadband finding: get to know the decisionmakers. He said that to win those funds, small operators are going to have to learn how their state government machinery works. “[E]ach state is going to be a little different, some will be better staffed and ready for this money,” Walden said. “You’re going to have to work and get to know who makes those decisions in your state and how do you take advantage of it.” That means not just getting to know the heads of the state agencies that distribute funding, Walden added, but local and state legislators as well, who can be supportive in dealing with the various bureaucracies involved with each application. “The extent to which you can build partnerships when you go in, [is] probably the better,” Walden said. “Most elected officials don’t like to choose among their children, so if you can move up, you’ll have a stronger case to make and they will too to whoever is going to make the decision in the state.”